lots of butternut squash

roasting up this massive butternut squash today. tasty.

Two-foot long squash

plentiful and plump seeds

Kale Chips

The last of the kale, tossed with olive oil, sesame oil and fancy ancient sea salt from Utah. I left the stems on the smaller leaves. Dehydrate at 105°F until crispy. Really tasty.

Before Drying

Tastes a little like Korean style nori

Almost Tuesday!

Here are some pictures to make up for missing a day in my updates from home...

Bandit on the long green grass

Hendrix on the stairs up close

Jordan is home from Tucson!

Happy Hendgy

Sweet Bandit

APS

Our Joid is off to his first professional meeting, to present a poster at the American Physical Society in Tucson.

Dehydrators

Some dehydrator thoughts for firstofmany.

I can't say I have too much experience, but I do like the Nesco much better than the old Ronco I had. Key elements are a fan (no need to rotate trays) and temperature control. Ours doesn't have a timer or digital temp change feature, but I don't feel I need it.

Another thing I like is that the heat comes from the top. My old one had the heat at the bottom, and consequently food drips were kind of burning as they hit the elements. This is the source of my Salmon "Sauce-Bearnaise" Syndrome.  I had been making salmon jerky, maybe 1990 or so. Still have trouble with the smell of salmon.

Here are two links.

Amazon for the Nesco we bought (scroll down to customer reviews, very helpful)

DehydratorBook (nice reviews and tips)

Bedtime

i love it when i call to the dogs "bedtime", and they sleepily but happily stagger to the bedroom with me. they can be so sweet.

they are missing their pack though, for sure. when will everyone else come back home?

Grapes

Dehydration continues. Working through the backlog in the fridge, three kinds of grapes.

Green and Purple from Erin (local). Large Red commercial (Cutler, CA).

The local ones have seeds, so I'm juicing them and trying some dried fruit rolls. We have plenty of jam now, and the MathMan isn't here to drink the juice. The red seedless got washed and checked in boiling water. They seem so big, so I went ahead and cut most in half to decrease the drying time. Raisins!

the pre-raisin state

processing in the china cap